social, economic and environmental issues of coastal erosion

Question 1

Loss of tourism

Answer 1

Tourism produces 33% of the Maldives GDP

Question 2

Damage of fish processing plants

Answer 2

reduces the Maldives fish exports, which contributes to 10% of their GDP as their largest export

Question 3

houses destroyed or damaged

Answer 3

may cause a large scale migration of 500,000 people

Question 4

freshwater supplies + farmland polluted

Answer 4

have to rely on rainwater and build expensive desalination plants

Question 5

coral bleaching

Answer 5

coral atolls may become uninhabitable so loss of extremely precious ecosysytem + will reduce tourism

Question 6

soil layer washed away

Answer 6

very shallow soil layer of 20cm so flooding easily washes the soil away

Question 7

wears away beaches

Answer 7

exposes land behind the beaches to flooding and erosion